


Dragonbound

by staticfiction



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Day6 as Dragons, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Urban Fantasy Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-08 18:13:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17391236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticfiction/pseuds/staticfiction
Summary: Once a mighty fire drake training for the Celestial Palace's royal guard, Sungjin was robbed of his yeouijo and left for dead. Now he reigns over Seoul's darkest rookery, wealthy and powerful even without the source of his full powers. Until his dragon orb resurfaces in the possession of a faerie princess, and she's willing to offer him a trade.Anis is trapped in a life that more resembles an ongoing bid for her hand in a loveless marriage leaving her wanting more—her freedom. If the source of her misery is the dragon orb she carries, then it stands to reason that her best solution is to return the yeouijo to its rightful owner. It's a good thing then, that Sungjin is willing to do whatever it takes.Their agreement is both simple and complicated, and soon Sungjin and Anis are in over their heads choosing between all they’ve ever wanted and the only thing they’ve truly desired.





	1. PROLOGUE

 

_The Faewylde Woods_

_Ten years ago_

 

  
The last bludgeon caught him off guard.

With his back flat on the soft wildwood earth, the Dragonborn stared up at the dark forest canopy in contemplative shock. Looking back at the past twelve hours, he felt only the slightest pang of regret at the decisions he had made and only because now he was at Death’s door knocking.

If he had reacted one second quicker, he might have avoided the lethal blow to his head. If he had taken one more second to think through his choices, perhaps he might have avoided the entire ordeal completely.

But, no.

Sungjin, Dragonborn Royal Guard-In-Training to the Celestial Palace, was dying. Because of a dare. To be fair, there were far more ridiculous ways to die and Death By Troll, if one were to squint and look at it sideways, could be considered respectable were the circumstance any different. Different, as in he had not come running into the middle of the forbidden Faewylde Woods because someone insinuated he couldn’t possibly defeat a troll by himself—that he was too afraid to break the rules to even cross the walls to begin with. Now all he could think of was that perhaps there was a reason why the woods were forbidden from entry in the first place.

He had said as much, yet here he was waiting for his life to flash before his eyes.

At least he had no parents to worry about him—a bastard as most, if not all, Dragonborn were, he wasn’t even certain his own father would mourn the loss of one son out of many the lineage left unclaimed. Though as he touched his chest, he couldn’t help but think otherwise.

His yeouijo thrummed inside his body, keeping him alive if only just so. Most Dragonborn, illegitimate half-breed children of Dragon deities and mortals were not born with an orb. A yeouijo meant his Dragon parent shed a tear for him, granted him powers beyond his kind. For whatever reason the tears were shed, it did not matter anymore. All that mattered was that Sungjin had been loved at one point before he was left at the training grounds as a small child. More than the yeouijo making him more powerful above the rest, was the knowledge that unlike the other half-breeds, his Dragon parent had claimed him, albeit anonymously. That if he were to prove himself, he could take his place with the deities at the Celestial Palace.

He focused his eyes on the breaks of moonlight from the canopy above. Channelling his divine energy, he slowed his breathing in hopes of recovery. Even if he were to yell, there was no one around to hear him. He had told no one where he would be, and it was unlikely anyone was to check on him at this hour of the night. The next best thing was for someone to find his body, recognize his robes as that of the Celestial Guard, and make sure his body was returned.

But for now, Sungjin was alone.

A spark of light glittered in his peripheral vision followed by the soft flutter of wings through the sounds of the woods. He held his breath, wary of allowing himself to hope.

She appeared before his eyes. Her hair was black like a lake beneath an inky sky on a moonless night. Her skin looked pale like the reflection of the moon on the water. She tilted her head as she studied him. Her lips were the color of cherries, and her eyes were somewhere between blue and violet and everything else in between. He caught a scent of her, wild and fresh like summer and sweet like rich and heavy nectar.

“Dragonborn,” she said, her voice much like the rest of her—the kind that made him think of innocence and sin. She pushed his hair off his forehead, thumbed away the blood that clotted there. “What brings you here to the brink of death?”

Through the haze of lust and confusion, Sungjin recognised her for what she was. He grew up hearing the worst of the Fae, beautiful as they were wicked. They were taught never to come to the woods for the Fae were sure to lure them with their promises and trick them with their honeyed words. Sungjin refused to speak. Could not find the words to do so.

She ran her cool fingers across his cheek and down the line of his throat to settle her palm on his chest. Interest flashed in her eyes and she licked her lips.

“I could bring you back to life,” she whispered, intent dripping from her words. “I could give you life…”

Sungjin refused to answer even as his breaths came in shallow gulps.

She thumbed his cheek, a gesture far too gentle for the stories he had heard about her kind. “So much life left in you. I could give you a fair trade. Do we have a deal?”

Cold surged through him, fear and loathing all at the same time. A dozen things could have run through his mind, yet in the fleeting seconds that passed between them all he could think of was how much this was going to hurt. Perhaps in death it didn’t matter.

“Let me die.”

“Dragonborn,” she said into his ear, “I do this for you. Remember that.”

Pain shot through him, sharp and scorching. Resistance was futile, he was already too weak. Then a ripple of cold washed over him, a gentle stream of water down his face and arms. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he finally succumbed to unconsciousness with the image of lavender eyes lingering behind his lids.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

_The Dragon’s Nest_

_Early Winter_

  
There were certain cardinal rules of etiquette one is advised to follow when dealing with dragons—or as the case may be, dragon _born_ —and Anis, highborn Imperator of the Gossamerwing fae, was about to break them one by one if need be.

Not by choice, of course. She wasn’t mad. But rather by necessity. Fate had turned. Her own choices—or perhaps the lack of them—had left her no other option. Desperation had brought her here, and it was time she faced the consequences of the decisions she had made in the past.

It was time she faced _him_.

Anis hesitated at his door, feeling the familiar swirling in her gut and the sudden buckling of her knees. This time, however, it was less from hunger and exhaustion of her journey than it was from fear. Fear, and the metallic burn of cold iron.

The narrow hallway seemed to shrink around her as the floor swayed in her vision.Her throat tightened and filled with cotton, and her skin felt like it was about to burst into flames from the inside. She almost laughed if not for the sick feeling in her stomach and the red mottling on her skin. Her kind had one weakness and the dragonborn used it well, no doubt as a consequence of her.

She cast a look back from where she came. She could run. Disappear. Exile herself.And to what end? Wouldn’t she be running from one cage only to fall into another? No. Anis did not want that. Certainly not a cage to be kept in, only taken out once in the summer to be made to look at as a paragon of perfection. She’d already had enough of that, and Anis had no desire to create a cage of her own where her only chance of survival was to be kept hidden until she lost herself.

_That’s if they don’t find me first._

There was that, as well. No doubt they were looking for her now. She would have been touched at the gesture had she not known that the true intent of her brother’s pursuit was less of worry for his dearest sister but instead for what they stood to gain from her marital success. Of what it meant to the many suitors who wanted her hand in marriage. As though she was not aware that what they wanted was not her but something far more valuable. So valuable, her father could not marry her off soon enough, what with these powerful men and what they could bring to their obscure monarchy. Two nights ago, her father had given her an ultimatum, and she would be married as her father willed, as though it were the Middle Ages, and he would finally begin carving out his empire.

Perhaps it was punishment equal to the crime. After all, even if she was technically innocent, she committed the worst sin against the Celestials:

_Do not steal from a dragon._

She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t clever. She wasn’t particularly talented. She wasn’t at all much of anything until she had found the dragonborn in the Faewylde, grasping for life, weak enough to not be so intimidating and dangerous as she came to his aid. And when his yeouiju came to be passed onto her, that made her the most valuable daughter of all her sisters.

But Anis was done being an inconvenient vessel to a dragon orb, and whose wants were not paramount in the situation.

Steeling herself, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the little stone charm she had procured to aid her escape. The power had drained to but a short charge and she knew this would be the last of its use. Once she was through his door, there was no way back out.

Power surged through her akin to a gentle ripple on the surface of the water, a skimming sensation, not quite skipping stones across the lake but close. Anis held on to the weaves of her innate magic and the borrowed strength, and made herself pass without a trace through the iron door, straight into a room that was part-library, part-study, and all masculine energy. A fire crackled in a pit, an odd addition to an otherwise modern royal suite but not at all out of place in the grandeur.

Through the faint golden glow of his chambers, she found him in his massive leather chair facing the glass panel windows, sound asleep.

Of all the manners of conducting with dragons, this was, perhaps, the least of tonight’s sins: _Do not disturb a sleeping dragon_.

She came to him slowly, her feet barely touching the lushly carpeted floor as her wings silently carried her over to his form. From above, she looked at him, his face cast in shadows but she could see him as though he were bathed in bright light. Even asleep, he was intimidating with the size and force of him. Her gaze followed the length of him in his dark trousers and his black shirt, clothes that would not, and could not possibly, suggest what he used to be. Yet, the angles and the planes of his face betrayed his celestial lineage—a dragonborn of the Celestial Guard, the closest there are to the gods.

The years had changed him from when she had seen him last, and not simply in the straightforward and linear passage of time that turned a boy into a man. The softness and the golden shimmer of his skin had given way to sharp edges and a weathered earthly complexion, but made him no less beautiful. Bisecting his brow, where once there had been blood, was a thick scar that served to highlight that this was a man to be feared, if the width of his shoulders and his solid muscles weren’t reason enough.

He breathed steady, his chest rising and falling in a hypnotising rhythm. Even on the brink of death he had been so warm, Anis knew for sure he wouldn’t simply be _warm_ were she to lay her hand on him now.

Or would he? Suddenly she wasn’t so sure.

Curiosity flooded her and, before she could stop herself, she reached out to caress his cheek with the tips of her fingers. He was smooth and warm and _alive_. And he was tempting, ever so.

She drew in a breath at her courage, or was it madness? Only a giddy panic spurred her on. She’d imagined the feel of her fingers his skin before, or rather tried to recall the memory of when she had first touched him. His hair had been longer and silken between her fingers instead of the close shave it was now. Her fingers traced the scar on his brow, found faded white lines and ridges and cuts to match further down the perfect slope of his cheekbones and his nose. Her chest tightened as she considered the violence that would have created those breaks. The pain of them.

The life he had lived to produce them.

The life he lived because of her.

“Dragonborn, who let this happen to you?” The question came out on a whisper.

He did not answer, and her touch slid to his final scar, at the curve of his lower lip.

Only later would it occur to her that he did not try to stop her.

She knew she was already taking it further than what was proper, that she was taking advantage of him once again, but then her fingers were on that thin white line, barely there against rich skin, edging into the soft swell of his lip. And then she was touching his mouth, tracing the dips and curves of it, marvelling at its softness.

Wondering how it would feel on hers.

Suddenly, he reached up and pulled her hand off his face. His touch was incendiary. His hot fingers wrapped around her slim wrist and, before she could stop him, he pulled her to him, sending her toppling on top of him and exposing her to him. For a long moment, his gaze roamed her face and she forgot her sins against him.

His eyes were no longer a mosaic of ambers and greens and greys. Now his eyes were black as midnight framed by long, dark lashes. Anis dropped her eyes to her fingers brushing against the skin that peeked between the unfastened buttons of his shirt.

When he spoke, there was steel in his voice. “Look at me.”

She did not dare resist the pull of his fingers when he lifted his hand to her face to turn her to the faint light that glowed to their side. He took her in, his grip tightening when she tried to pull her chin away. Blood rushed to her ears at his following words.

“It’s you,” he breathed. He released her instantly, as though the recognition of her seared through his skin.

Anis took flight, her instinct to survive taking over her well-laid plans. Her wings propelled her a few paces back before being weighed down by the freshly activated runes inside his chambers. She did not fight it. She had nowhere to go. The dragonborn’s chambers were at the top floor of a high rise building, and she had no safe passage out the ironclad defenses. The weight of her journey was taking its toll, her fear resurfacing as the dragonborn stood from his repose to stalk toward her.

“Who are you?” The question came out harsh and demanding.

She hesitated, eyes wide. It felt like an eternity passed before she found her answer. “A daughter of summer. I come in peace.”

His features hardened even more, growing more stark, more dangerous in the shadows. He took another step forward, and she took a step back. “Again, I ask. Who are you?”

Her eyes shifted and she bit her lip. The question singed her; the words were mangled and coated with something both hot and cold and her breaths drew up short. “A daughter of the Gossamerwing, a damselfly I am. I wish to do you no harm.”

He remained still, watching her with that dark gaze that seemed to already have had everything figured out. Her instinct told her to flee, too aware of how vulnerable she was in the position he left her in. But then again, the whole point of this escape was to be caught.

And by him.

“Thrice I ask, and let us be done. Who are you?”

The Binding took hold, grasping Anis in an unseen force. The Fae are not allowed to speak a lie, and if thrice an oath is uttered they are obligated to make it true. Anis had no intention of lying to him, and the Binding was unnecessary as it was annoying. She ignored the nagging sensation best as she could.

“I am Anis, Imperator from the Gossamerwing. I wish to do you no harm, Dragonborn. I am here now, I’ve come for you. I’ve come with a bargain.”

He laughed. A single, harsh syllable in the darkness. He bowed, quick and mocking. “Princess, forgive me if I’m a little less than thrilled to see you here right now.”

She raised her chin, refused to cower in front of him. “Do we have an agreement?”

“I agree to nothing,” he spat, “Only fools deal with your kind and I’ve had enough. I should kill you. Right now. For what you’ve done to me.”

And he would have every right to do so, but dying was far from her plans tonight. “You won’t.”

“No?” He moved aside to rest his hip against a large hardwood desk and crossed his ankles, folding his arms casually over his chest. The move claimed the entire space as his own. He was in control. His black eyes stayed on her, watching her every move. “And why not?”

“Because I saved your life.”

“Did you?”

It was a battle. Anis would not be the first to relinquish control of the situation. She would not lose to him. So she tried not to fidget under the weight of his gaze and the silence. Apparently, he had no intention of giving up either and he tilted his head at her, confident that he would win.

She narrowed his gaze at him and waited. She waited until she could not wait any longer. Folding her hands together to keep them from shivering, she met his gaze head on.“You will listen to what I have to say.”

Yet another rule broken: _Do not take unbecoming liberties with a dragon._

Not that it mattered what else she did from hereon, she had already broken what was considered the most important commandment anyway. Though in her defense, she didn’t _steal_ his orb in service of keeping him alive. It just…happened. Alive was far better than dead. True, he had been cast away from the Celestial Palace, stripped of his honour as Royal Guard, and perhaps now a cautionary tale, but _alive_.

He laughed again, one devoid of humour and sounded more like an expression of pain than pleasure. “What could you possibly say that would make me want to listen to you? You left me for dead. You stole from me.”

And there it was, though not quite the whole truth. She had tried to save him—she would argue that she _had_ saved him. Anis had stopped death from taking him, but not without a price.

 _Not that she had given him a choice_.

She raised her chin, determined not to let him see how her heart raced in this confined space. Alone. With him. “I did not steal from you. And you are clearly not dead.”

He loomed in the darkness, the shadow of his former self casting an eerie sense that though his form was that of a human, inside he was a dragon. “Without my yeouiju I might as well be. After I was banished from the Celestial Guard, I had nothing left.”

 _I did not mean for this to happen_ , she thought. She wanted to say it, but he wouldn’t believe her. He wouldn’t want to believe her, and he had every right not to. But she didn’t come to seek his forgiveness. She came for her own freedom.

“Well, we both can see you are very much alive and thriving at that.” Even without his dragon orb, he seemed to have made a life for himself. Anis knew because she paid attention. Though he was now Earthbound, the man was a dragonborn nonetheless. Powerful as he was wealthy, known through his reign over the Sometimes Place’s darkest rookeries and the mortal realm’s modern sins and vices. He could have all of the city at his feet were he to ask of it.

A thought whispered through her on a thread of guilt. She paid attention because he’d been a casualty too. A victim of fate, as they all were.

 _I am sorry_.

And she would not be lying were she to say the words out loud. But the Fae did not apologize. They did not feel remorse or regret. Or if they did, they would not lower themselves so as to show it.

But she was here to make it all right again.

Anis could not change the past. She could only move on from where they stood. She could not pretend that she was faultless in his circumstance, but she could not have predicted how their actions would have changed her. Would do to her. To him.

Circumstance had forced their hand, just as it was forcing her into making a move now.

“I’ve come to make a trade,” she offered.

“I’m done making deals with your kind.” The twitch of his jaw betrayed the calm he presented. She noticed the movement because she’d had to teach herself lessons in self-preservation and safety. There was always something that betrayed a man’s anger and frustration, and she knew the signs well.

“Even desperate ones?”

His eyes went dark. “Especially those.”

She did not expect him to reject her on principle, but she was far from making her point. For a moment, she considered running instead. She could leave now and the world would not know any better. It would be easy to pretend that she had never made this choice—that she had never made any of her previous choices if only she didn’t carry a constant reminder with her. A constant that now made her face the choices she had made in her past in order that she may have choices in her future.

Anis lifted her chin defiantly. “I believe this is one you might want to consider.”

His eyes gleamed feral as he leaned forward, but only just so. “What could you possibly have that I would want?”

He knew.

Of course, he knew.

She felt the pull toward him as soon as she entered his space, the call of what rightfully belonged to him but currently resided deep inside her. It had been warm, a feeling so foreign yet so familiar to her. Nothing quite like anything she had experience before. A shiver ran up her spine but she clamped the feeling away. “I have what you want.”

“Surely you don’t mean an apology.”

“ _Do_ you want me to apologize?”

“Is your kind even capable of feeling remorse or anything at all?”

She regarded him with a chill in her gaze practiced and perfected through the years. “I understand that you are angry and require vindication.”

When the corner of his lips tugged into an uneven smile, she knew for certain it was the wrong thing to say. “Angry does not even begin to describe the depths of my emotion. What is it that you want from me?”

“It’s what I can offer you, actually.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, leaned forward to push himself square onto his feet.

Anis had one chance to negotiate with the dragonborn. She had to do it correctly. It was a risk, one that forced her to wager to uncertain odds but what other choice did she have? “A straight trade.”

“No such thing for your kind.” He advanced toward her, a predator on the hunt.

Anis took a step back, moving counter to him and taking the chance to put some distance between them. “Hear me out first.”

He kept his focus on her as he continued his way toward her. “I’m listening, then.”

“A straight trade. I give you back what is yours.”

A wicked brow rose in response. “In exchange?”

She took a breath, released the words with an exhale. “In exchange for what it takes for you to take back what is yours.”

He exhaled one long breath. “I have no time for your honeyed words. Tell me what it is that you want.”

“I want to give you back your dragon orb.”

“Why?” The word was dark and menacing. He kept coming closer. And closer.

She answered with a little shrug. “Because it belongs to you.”

“That is not a reason.” His arms shot out in her moment’s hesitation and pulled her into him. Caged her in his arm, lifted her up and pressed her against the glass windows overlooking the city skyline.“Now, princess, tell me what it is that you want.”

Anis pressed her hands against his chest. Pushed. The effort was futile against the solid wall of him. “I tell you no lies.”

“And you tell me half truths, and half truths are as good as lies.”

He was close. So close, his voice was a whisper of breaths brushing the arches of her cheeks. She struggled against him once more, desperate to be free from the heat of him. “It is not easy, taking back your orb.”

“Oh, I think I would know.”

She heard his anger in his words. Felt his pain through his touch. He was far too much stronger than her, holding her in place with with just the one arm banded around her waist and the other bracketing her head. Later she would wonder where it was she found the courage to stop struggling to look him in the eye and say, “You can have it back, what is yours. All I ask is that…” She hesitated, hating the words. “Is that you take it back.”

“You speak in circles. Say it. Tell me what you want and let us be done with this.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. She did not breathe, for at every inhale she could smell the winter evergreen on him and she lost her focus. “Dragonborn, believe me I tell you no lies.”

“Out with it.” He pressed her into the glass, drowned her deeper into the heat of him.

“Your yeouiju, I cannot give it to you.” Heat rushed to her face, making her heady with embarrassment. “You must take it.”

“And you mean to allow me to simply take it?”

“It means…” She opened her eyes and met his black gaze in the darkness. Then she stroked her palm up his chest in a gentle, albeit hesitant, caress. “It means, _Brannon nin,_ that we are to be married.”

He released her in a great booming guffaw of laughter. Anis maintained her stance, chin up and shoulders squared. She especially did not like that he ended his laughter with an emotionless grin. A wicked series of expressions ran through his face as he considered her words and made sense of them.

This man, he didn’t just want his yeouiju. He wanted vengeance.

“What new punishment is this, princess?”

“It is as much punishment for me as it is for you.” She turned her nose up at him even as her heart pounded and he wrecked her senses. “I did not make the conditions that bind your orb to me. It is what must be done,” she said, hoping as she said the words she was not revealing more than what she’d been willing to reveal.

“You have my yeouiju, Anya,” He whispered at her ear, low and liquid and altogether too distracting from what ire she felt for him. He stroked her arm in a long caress. “I want it back. And I do intend to take it. If that includes making you mine, then so be it.”

She did not move. She hadn’t a choice.

“You’re mine now. Though you must understand _, mo chroi—_ ” Shock coursed through her when he lifted her arm and tossed her over his shoulder. “—Trust remains an issue.”

The endearments were both mockeries, and as her gaze drifted to the floor she thought, _Maybe I should have left him for dead after all_.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

And so he’d taken her.

The dream came as it often did on nights he spent alone, and alone he often was. 

Sungjin did not even flinch or open his eyes when he felt her, lithe and flush, climb over him to straddle his waist. Instinctively, his hands came up her thighs to cup her soft flesh and press her against him. Despite the haze clouding his consciousness, his body hummed to life.

But he hadn’t been dreaming.

When he’d opened his eyes he’d been surprised to find that he had not been dreaming of soft curves pressing into him or of gentle caresses easing the weight of his burdens. Those eyes were real. Lavender eyes he could not forget. Everything had stilled. Something rushed through him. Raw power. A memory he’d resisted calling forward. A life he’d refused to think about for years. His yeouiju called to him. And when he saw those wide eyes staring back at him, everything he tamed and resisted had been released. The dragon in him had stirred, roared like Hell itself.

Emotion came, hard and angry. Confusion. Fury. Relief. A dozen others. Here was the woman who had changed his life. Who had ruined his life. Sungjin had imagined scenario after scenario that ended in him finding her. He’d spent the last decade torn between accepting his fate and fighting for his true nature. On the nights the dragon in him was strong, he’d planned to track her down or to have her tracked down, claim her by coercion or by seduction, or if it came to it abduction.

He didn’t plan for the damselfly imperator to infiltrate his heavily warded suite to come find him in the bitter cold of early December, in the dead of day—right in the middle of his slumber—and offer him marriage as though it were the most sensible thing.

In no fairy tale did princesses marry dragons.

However, she did save him quite a bit of work and he wasn’t about to take that for granted.

So now she was his.

For a moment, he thought she would panic and change her mind. But she didn’t. She did not even flinch, other than a soft ‘oof’, when he’d thrown her over his shoulder. Neither did she pound her fists against his back nor flail her legs in an attempt to escape. Stupid girl. She should have run. She should have never come to him in the first place.

“Dragonborn, how exactly do you expect me to run? And to where? Put me down,” she said calmly, or as calmly as one could given the awkward angle she was placed tossed over his shoulder.

He did not reply. Instead he resettled her on his shoulder, grabbing her legs in one arm and tilting her forward until her wings folded back into the aether and she grasped the back of his shirt for balance. He took no small amount of satisfaction at her disgruntled squeaks and the brush of her cool skin against his—tried not to think of her short dress riding up her bared thighs.

He would not think of her at all.

“Dragonborn, believe me. I have no intention of running from you. I came to you. Put me down.”

He ignored her and flung open the door to his bedchambers and marched her up through the darkness of the spiral staircase. It seemed that the lady, indeed, had a less than recommended allotment of sense. Or, rather likely, more cunning than he was giving her credit for, and he already trusted her about as much as he trusted that the moon could be convinced to take a day shift.

He set her down at the centre of his bed, cursing his ability to see even in dim light.It revealed too much of her radiant skin and the way it contrasted with his dark sheets. He especially did not like that she looked as if she belonged there. The rest of his room was bare, set in glass and stone, spartan in design and function. Anis was by far the strangest, most out of place thing in sight, and yet she was the centrepiece of this room. She folded her legs beneath her and held her hands together on her lap.

She was unsettling.

How he wished she would struggle more. It would have made this far less suspect than it already was. Almost a decade he searched for her, not once finding any trace of her. Suddenly she breaks into his office while he slept with the audacity to bestow upon him the power she had stripped off him long ago?

Something coursed through him. Something cold and furious. Sungjin had already played the fool once before. Never again. He would not be another one of the Fae’s playthings. He would have his revenge. He deserved it.

The last time he’d seen her, he’d been dead. But he didn’t die. He’d woken up alone in an abandoned hut in the middle of the forest stripped of his yeouiju. His birthright. The only thing that had given his life purpose and meaning.

Power he had lost and vowed to regain.

At any cost.

Even marriage.

As though she sensed his turmoil, Anis rose to her knees and the silken slip of her dress—if one could even call it that—clung to her waist and her hips. But it wasn’t the scandalous length that served as his main distraction. The translucent fabric ran the spectrum of deep violets to pale blues to silvery whites, complimenting the luminous sheen on her skin. Her hair was in disarray, tumbling down her shoulders, cascading like a midnight sky down the sides of her face. It left his imagination spinning wildly in thoughts of ravishing her.

And perhaps he would if she were to ask very nicely.

When she came to him, her movements were lithe, as if she was constantly in volant motion. A liquid grace and a thoughtless, casual, sensuality that sent a quiver of arousal down his spine. It’s been far too long since he’d known the touch of a woman, but this was no woman. Anis was far more dangerous than any threat he knew.

She was a danger to his life.

Had been. Always would be.

The faeries had a way of insinuating themselves into one’s life, offering you what you think you want for a fair trade. But their bargains were never fair. They twisted their words, laced sweets with poison. They had a way of putting you deeper into their bargains instead of the clear of the woods.

Her lavender eyes, wide and clear, met his gaze without shame. Without remorse.

“What happened?” he snapped at her, crowding her in the darkness.

Her eyes went wide. “What?”

“That night. How did you take my yeouiju?”

The act itself was nothing but brutal and violent, often resulting in death. Yeouiju made lesser dragons gods, resulting in gifted dragonborn being hunted down in order to wage wars with the seated gods. Sungjin had been called a liability when he came to the training grounds. The elders thought him a threat to their safety, a guard with a target on his back. They thought him a boy who would grow up prideful and entitled, simply because he was born a step away from royalty. But they could do nothing but accept him. So they trained him. Harder than any of the rest. Sungjin took it all and rose above the ranks. He had been the best. Though perhaps not the wisest.

Sungjin had woken up the following morning, naked and blanketed in his robes, without scars and without pain, and without the memory of what had happened.

All he had was shame.

Dishonour she brought upon him.

“Does it matter now?” she said, laying her hand upon his chest. “It’s yours for the taking.”

But it did. It mattered because in the hundreds, thousands, of times, he replayed that night in his head, he could not remember how he could have traded away his dragon orb. Especially not for whatever else she had promised him. Even for his life. He remembered the rage from the insinuation of cowardice. He remembered his breath leaving his chest in one swift, unbearable, rush. He remembered pain. He remembered those eyes, and he remembered her voice, and he remembered the way the ends of her hair tickled his cheek. He remembered the scent of summer on her skin. And then nothing.

Why couldn’t he remember anything else?

He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him, the narcotic scent of her filling his head and stirring him in dangerous places. “And I will take what’s mine.”

First, he wanted to know everything.

“Then take it.” She shuddered against him and took a deep breath. Her palms slid up and curled around his neck and her lips ghosted the skin under his jaw. “Take me, Dragonborn.”

The word gave him pause. It was an honorific he no longer recognised, one he’d come to hate especially from her mouth. It reminded him of the years he’d longed for meaning. The years she’d stolen from him. Banishment would have been the punishment for his crime, and he rather had them believe he was dead than stripped of his honour. There was no way he could have returned to the Celestial Palace either way.

Even though it was his birthright.

Another wave of anger shot through him. He took her shoulders in his hands and pulled her away just enough to see into her eyes. “What did you do to me that night?”

She sighed. Her strange, compelling gaze meeting his. “I brought you back to life.”

“And after that?”

“After that…” She released a long exhale. “I did not mean to leave you.”

He considered her for a long moment—understood that while she spoke some semblance of truth she would not tell him what he wanted to hear. The Fae dealt with power, and the more interested he seemed, the more power he allowed her over him. And he was not about to give her any more of that power.

She was under his mercy now. In all the years he lied in wait, vengeance came to him as a reward for his patience. He refused to resist the darkness in him even as he tasted the bitterness on his tongue.

“And now? After I take what’s mine?”

She reached for him again, boldly trailing her fingertips up the side of his neck, behind his ears, and wrapping her cold fingers around his head. Gods, she was freezing. “You can do whatever you want.”

“So long as I do what you want?”

“It’s a fair trade,” she said softly, and he heard the edge in her tone, the urgency.

“You destroyed my life.”

“They say you’re the Lord of the Underworld himself. You wield far more power, far more freedom this way than you ever would in the Royal Guard.”

“Yet that does not put me in a negotiating state of mind.”

Something both hot and cold travelled through his pulse and clouded in a hazy pool between his ears. He smelled freshly cut grass and felt a spot of sunlight in his scalp. The room seemed to sway in a swirl of light. Then he caught himself. Shook the spell away.

With one hand, he took her wrists and locked them behind her back. He lifted the other hand, a single finger tilting her chin up. “You dare charm me with your magic?”

She raised a brow. “Would you rather I charm you with my wit?”

Sungjin refused to be amused by her.

He refused to be impressed by the steel of her nerve.

Most of all, he refused the urge to claim her mouth, to allow gravity to let them tumble down into his bed so he could have her. That, too, he shook away. It’s the yeouiju, he reminded himself, not the woman that he craved.

Stroking one finger down her throat, he said, “We won’t have that, now would we. The last thing you’d want is a husband who might come to care for you.”

She stilled at that, and he knew he struck a nerve. Now that was something he had not expected. Something unpleasant flared inside him. He would not care for her. Sungjin did not have a heart that knew how.

And the Fae, they did not have hearts.

“Believe me,” she pressed on as though she hadn’t just spelled him. “I do not wish to marry you. But perhaps marriage might not be a requirement.”

“Are you asking me to fuck you?”

He meant to shock her. Instead, she appeared to have had already considered the possibility. That this was where she’d been leading him to all this time. Sungjin didn’t like it. He didn’t care for being manipulated. But she was his only chance at restoring his former self, and he would not ruin that chance.

Her eyes met his, and at least for that matter there was truth in them. Sungjin sensed it in a way so primal, so visceral, whatever bound his orb to her, _this_ was the only way he was getting it back. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Only it wasn’t nearly as amusing as it should be.

Her gaze remained firm. Fierce. “If it’s not such an inconvenience. You need not worry about romancing or seducing me. You need not pretend to do so. I am a willing body in your bed. An eager one, even. I shall endeavour to do my best and lay still as you go about your business. I’ve heard it would only take about six minutes of your time. That much would be tolerable, I think.”

A guttural growl escaped his throat, and the needs in him ran hot as a fever. “Believe me, when I do take you to bed, laying still would be the last thing on your mind.” He slid his fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck, holding her to him as he hovered over her. Threatening. _Promising_. “And, _mo chridhe_ , it would take far more than six minutes until I’m done with you. Furthermore, you will find that even after far more than that it would not be enough. You will beg for my touch. You will beg for me.”

That, and he had no intention of letting her escape again.

“Then take it. Take your orb.”

He could.

He could take her now on his bed. Just as she asked. She exhaled, parting her lips to release a long heavy breath, and his gaze lingered at her mouth, consumed with temptation. He wanted to touch her. Taste her. _He shouldn’t want to touch her_. She was a beast, beautiful as they were empty. Whatever her perfection, whatever their kind promised of indulgence and unrestrained passion, it was never worth the price they would have you pay.

But she needed him. Anis wanted something more from him, and he was determined to find out what it was.

This close, he could feel the heat of his power thrum deep within her. It was a dangerous instinct knowing exactly what he needed to do to claim what was rightfully his. It burned deep within him, a vision of lavender eyes wide with pleasure and something more blazing on her face. Something close to yearning. Feeling. But he knew better than to take Anis for her word. Until he knew everything, it would be best to keep her close. She’d run from him before, hidden so well she could not be found. This time, he would make it impossible for her to escape.

“It’s not the only thing I wish to take,” he said.

“Here I thought you were done with the bargains.” Her gaze remained stubborn. Fearless. “Take me. After such, you shall have your yeouiju and you would have no more use of me. I offer you a fair trade. You are free of any obligation to me, Dragonborn. I hold you to no debt. My kind are bound to speak the truth.”

“And yet that hasn’t impeded your ability to deceive.”

“Do you really intend to drag this far longer than what is required? I walked through your door. It doesn’t get any easier than this.”

“Ten years,” Sungjin said. “I’ve survived ten years without my yeouiju. It can wait. No more bargains but this. You call it a fair trade, then let’s even out the spoils. What I want requires neither ease nor quickness.”

“What else is it that you want?” But she knew. Somehow she already knew the answer to her own question.

“Retribution.”

The words unsettled her, though she did her best to hide it. There was no escape in the way he’d held her against him, and she struggled more but his grip was firm. “So you mean to make me your prisoner?”

“ _Mo chridhe_ , I mean to make you my wife.”

“I would make a terrible wife.” The expression drained from her face. One moment, there had been relief though it was fleeting. But that simply vanished, leaving her features cold and lovely and remote and empty of all emotion, of anything recognizably dragon or human.

“I’ve no need for a wife.”

“And you’d make a terrible husband.”

“I have no intentions of being a good one.” He had no intentions of being a present one. His plan was to keep her as close as possible until he could restore his dragon orb without furthering his involvement with her ilk. They would be married, but there would be no reason for him to see to her activities once the trade has been made. Sungjin had no time to feign interest. Or concern.

She met his gaze straight on. There was something more there. Something dangerous in her eyes that Sungjin couldn’t place. It wasn’t quite resignation. Not quite defeat. He didn’t like it. “Marriage it is.”

“And you will be mine to do as I please.”

“Precisely whatever you desire.”

He was close enough to feel the heat of her, a strange sensation from her cold hands and her cold skin. In another time and place, and perhaps if she were another woman, the words that came out of her mouth sounded like a promise. That if they were anyone else but who they were, she would lift herself up and press her lips against his. And he would warm her with the heat of his skin.

But she was not for kissing.

“You ruined my life,” he said in all casualness. “It’s only fair that I get to ruin yours.”

She straightened her shoulders as well as she could. “Marrying you is ruin enough.”

A laugh threatened and he held it in. “You came to me,” he reminded her. “This is what you wanted, is it not? Do not for a moment think that I am offering you your victory. It would be wise to understand this now. Be careful what you wish for, Anya.”

The faint look of triumph on her face was replaced by trepidation. “We have an agreement, then?”

“Do not think that your marriage to me will buy you your freedom.”

Her eyes shot up to meet his, panic and desperation marring the edges of her perfect, pale features. She blinked and the expression was gone. Slowly, she tilted her head at him. “It is not simply freedom I seek, Dragonborn. Freedom is what I offer you.”

His teeth clenched, and his voice came out in a low angry growl. “What do you want?”

“I wish to no longer be bound to your yeouiju, whatever the price may be.”

“What do you want?” he pressed, further binding her in deep, untouchable, magic once more to reveal the truth.

“Listen well for this is the truth,” she finally said, the words coming out in a concealed angry rush. “If I have no other future than one that is caged as someone’s prisoner and plaything, then at least my marriage to you will be Hell of my choosing. I speak no lies, I do not twist my words. Your yeouiju is bound to me, and once I am bound to you, it is yours once the marriage is consummated. I will take your punishment as you see fit. If you intend to break me, you can most certainly try. Until you decide that you are done with me, I shall do whatever you ask, and however you ask of it. I have no more to lose.”

There would be no going back for them both. Though, somewhere in his mind, there would be no going back for them anyway. He released her and stepped back. There were no more options to be weighed. It was this or nothing. “Then it is settled. We marry.”

Her breaths came shallow and laboured. She regarded him in that empty silence for long moments more. It was unsettling to see a face so lovely look so wholly alien, as though something lurked behind those features that had little in common with either of his kind and did not care to make the effort to understand. “And so we do. I am yours, _Brannon nin_.”

 _Truth_.

A marriage of convenience, though there was nothing convenient about the marriage at all. The woman who would soon be his wife sank into his bed, exhausted. He should have looked away. If he had, he wouldn’t notice the faint white lines on the otherwise perfect skin of her feet. Ghosts of scars, just pale enough to have had time to heal.

He did not like those scars.

“How did you get in?” he asked, resting his weight on one of the heavy wooden posts of his bed.

“I walked,” she answered, swaying to the side and letting herself fall into the softness of his covers. “It isn’t as though you’re a vampire. One does not require an invite to enter your home.”

No. Sungjin would not laugh. He quashed it. The woman was toxic, not amusing.

“You’re in my bed.”

“Yes. It’s very warm.” When she spoke, her voice sounded just as beautiful as it had the first time he encountered her in that forest. But it was empty, quiet, haunting. She spoke again, and it made him want to lean closer to her to hear her more clearly. “So very warm.”

Silence fell.

After a moment, she pushed herself up from the bed. Anis wobbled on her elbows, but her wings bursting from the aether in a cloud of light balanced her as she pulled herself over the bed to stand up. And so she stood before him on her feet, small and delicate, just about the height of his shoulder. “There is no time to wait. We must marry.”

He was wary of that as well. Sungjin contemplated her with a heavy gaze. He still didn’t trust her, but their situations were paralleled with the way she was using him for her own gain, whatever it was and he was intent on finding out. He would be using her, too. To gain all he ever wanted. To _take_ all he’d ever wanted. Wasn’t that was marriage was about? Weren’t all marital relations based on mutual benefit?

“There is always something to lose,” he said, “and I intend to find out.”

A different man would feel remorse, but Sungjin knew better. Anis was not the one being forced to play an unfortunate role. She was using his own nature against him, but it was a small price he was willing to pay for vindication.

That was that. Today, they would make their way to the Sometimes Place. Tomorrow, they married.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

For Anis who had travelled nearly a half a week on foot without stopping from the Faewylde Woods to The Dragon’s Nest, the journey toward The Sometimes Place would be nothing short of torture at her current state.

However, her insistence that they marry as soon as possible with no time to lose still took precedence over comfort. Given that no human ceremony would bind them in matrimony, only a Fae ritual or a Draconic ceremony administered by They who are one with the spirits could wed them. And the only ritual ceremony that could be granted to them with no questions asked was at a small outpost near the border to the Other Realm. The In Between. The fringes between the mortal surface and the realm of the spirits, of the faeries, and of demons and shadows.

By now her brother would be in close pursuit after realising what she had done. Sungjin may be a dragonborn, but he was without his yeouiju. He was limited without his dragon form. Even considering Sungjin’s legendary reputation as The Archion, undefeated throughout this side of the human realm, Anax Imperator had been trained and raised to fight with both rapier and magic against Faerie and Other. The standoff would only end in bloodshed and death. Anis found she was neither in the mood nor the inclination to lose a husband-to-be or a brother.

Anis followed Sungjin through the maze of private staircases throughout The Dragon’s Nest. Each entry had been spelled and warded against unauthorised access, a strange blend of human modern technology and arcane energy—powerful magic that bended and defied her understanding of the world. She could feel it everywhere, the hum of forces beyond the natural human capacity meshed with a familiarity of the only world she’s ever known. Beyond the lushly carpeted floors, the curiously decorated walls, and the dim illumination of these secret passages was a freedom she could not have imagined until today and it excited her. She had never been this far away from her home in the Faewylde before.

She wondered if Sungjin would keep her from this place.

If he would cage her, too.

“What is this place?” she asked the back of his head.

“You came here not knowing where you were going?”

She couldn’t place the tone of his voice, and she found that she didn’t care for it at all. She would not notice him. Anis had better use of her time and energy than to spend it understanding this man.

“I came only knowing where to find you.” She’d travelled on instinct, keeping her destination—keeping Sungjin—in mind and going where it felt right. The closer she got, the warmer the yeouiju felt inside her; when she’d gone the wrong way she’d felt the hollowness in her chest. Warily, she reached out to touch the textured walls but drew her hand back before her fingertips grazed the surface. At her state, she would not be able to handle any more damage.

“It won’t hurt you,” Sungjin said, watching her curiously.

She closed her hand into a fist and held it against the bottom of her breastbone. The entire structure had been made of metal and stone, of materials that no longer resembled their organic forms. Pure desperation had lead her forward, risking her own safety just to reach him. She’d gone a long way to get here. She would not further endanger herself. At least not until after they were married. “You have cold iron wards.”

He raised a brow. “Only to my chambers.”

She shouldn’t have found it amusing. After all, he’d warded his personal space against her. “And the rest of this place?”

Instead of answering her question, he turned his back to her once more, leaving her to fill in his silence with dread but also…anticipation. Adventure. They continued down the long hallway in heavy silence, and Anis could not help but wish she could cling to him. She wished that she’d had no need for the heat of him, to resist him and his orb in this small thing, claim for herself her own control, but there was something about this walk—something enigmatic and dark in a way that had nothing to do with light—that she could not force herself to deny that she craved his touch.

“My brother…” she said softly, watching the shadows dance along the hallway.

“Is after you.” He continued ahead, unbothered. “Perhaps close by. To return you to whoever it is that had bought your cage.”

She hated those words even as she’d spoken them just minutes before. Hated that this was her truth and that she’d had no choice. That this was her _only_ choice. “My brother is an excellent tracker and an excellent warrior—”

He turned to her slowly, the movement simultaneously a caress and a threat. The words he said should have held a hint of danger in them, but instead they were stated as simple fact. “He is more than welcome to try and best me.”

A faint light with no visible source flickered across the walls of the narrow corridor, casting a faint golden glow across the elegant wall coverings. Suddenly, the room seemed to close in on her, barely large enough to hold them both with his force and presence filling her breathing space. He stepped closer, close enough to touch. Close enough for the heat of him to warm her in the freezing corridor.

As though he wanted her.

As though they’d come for each other.

Which, of course, they hadn’t.

If it weren’t for his yeouiju, neither of them would be here.

It was for the best that she did not forget that.

He didn’t want her any more than any of the other men in her life did. And she did not come to him hoping for someone she could love or for someone who could love her. She had come to him because she needed someone she could never trust.

Anis wished she could see his eyes as he loomed over her, but they remained obscured by the shadows. And it wasn’t fair. “I’d rather it not come to that,” she said.

“Sisterly affection?” he mocked.

“I have not married you yet,” she simply answered. She’d be damned if he took her only choice in the matter away from her.

One side of his mouth kicked up in a fleeting half smile, and for a moment her memories brought her back to another time and place, before they had become what they had become, when she had enjoyed making him smile. When the ease and the calm of his unguardedness had promised her more than a pleasant encounter in the woods.

A promise of pleasure.

She pushed the thought, and the images that came with it, from her mind.

“Then you should be grateful that I have at my disposal the means to make this happen quickly and efficiently,” he replied, and turned away from her, the conversation complete.

She’d been dismissed again. And so easily. This man wielded power like a weapon, much like the men she’d been surrounded by all her life. When she was a child, her father made it impossible for her to live as she liked, moving her like a pawn in his desire for power and influence. All her sisters’ marriages had been calculated, favours owed and favours paid, each a trade and bargain that would bring their unknown kingdom closer to the Courts. There was no future for her where she would not be sold off to a man no doubt just as domineering. And so she’d run.

She was still running.

Continuing on, they turned down the seemingly endless hallway and stopped by a nearby metal door. Anis hovered on the threshold of the steel box beyond, her breath coming fast and shallow, nervousness coiling deep within.

Sensing her fear, Sungjin offered her his hand, and his wide, flat palm beckoned. “It’s only an elevator. It will not hurt you.”

They were words that should have given her doubt and unease. His eyes, however, said differently. Instead, her heart pounded from something she couldn’t quite identify.

Danger.

Escape.

Hope.

Everything all at once.

Gingerly, she took his hand and he lead her inside, his assurance her only refuge. Sungjin held her close to him as the doors closed; she folded her wings back into the aether and stood on tiptoes on the cold surface. The elevator took them down so smoothly, Anis did not even realize it until they stepped out and she was beset with the distinct feeling they were underground.

He lead her further into the pitch-black darkness and into a tunnel where one wall seemed to be made of ancient brick and stone and the other of a mixture of rotting wooden beams, loose earth, and winding roots. The terrain was rugged and uneven, but she had no choice but to walk on her feet, unable to utilise her wings this far away from the sunlight. Further in, the tunnel gave way to low-roofed cavern, supported by natural pillars, mounds of collapsed earth, and wooden beams that looked like they'd been added in afterward. Anis had heard stories of places like this before, whole cities existing beneath the streets humans inhabited. A civilisation of half-breeds and changelings, and creatures of the dark, and shadows of the unknown. They called it the Underdark.

Sungjin released her hand—and she mourned the loss of his touch—to press his fingers against a groove in the wall. A small, flat section of stone clicked and retracted, and triggered the release that pivoted the entire section from the centre turning outward. Inside was more darkness. And then her vision flooded with color.

 

Anis woke in the darkness wrapped in a sensuous warmth that blanketed her all over and inside and out. Disoriented, she blinked several times, allowing her eyes to adjust to the shadows, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings before the faint silvery glow of the waning moonlight filtering through the copse of trees brought clarity.

She was curled on her side in a nest of spongy grass ensconced in a gnarly tree hollow, and all around her she was enveloped in a kindling fire that smelled oddly of winter evergreen. Wildflowers and moss as well, but not as startlingly vivid or as lingering.

She turned her head.

Sungjin curled around her like a dragon sleeping on top of his hoard. He lay on his side, head on top of his bent arm and his other arm draped across her, clasping her waist so her back was firmly against his chest. But it wasn’t just her back that was pressed to his chest quite thoroughly. She was lined against him _everywhere_. Distractingly so.

Slowly, she turned toward him, avoiding making any excess movements or sounds while revelling in the feel of him. The sight of him so peaceful when he slept. Mortal time may have touched him, but he was beautiful still, perhaps more in the moonlit glow of the Faewylde Woods. Ten years, he’d said. For Anis it hadn’t been quite as long even though it felt like she’d been kept in a patch of slowed time. A vision flashed, her dragonborn young and handsome and bold, pushing through the woods in elegant strides, sword drawn at the ready.

He was more dangerous now as he were. Dangerous in a dark and menacing way. Sungjin was Celestial Guard no more. No longer beholden to a patron or the tenets they stood for. Now he roamed the Underdark and the shadows of the mortal realm.

It made her want to touch him. Just to see if he was real.

If he were still made of the same flesh and bone and ichor of the gods.

Perhaps _want_ was not strong enough for the yearning she’d felt.

Her gaze lingered on his mouth, tempting lips that refused to smile at her. Lips that had forgotten how to smile or laugh. They frowned instead. In the hours she’d known him, all he’d done with those lips was string them tight as though he was in a perpetual state of holding back. A perpetual state of shame. He may have still been the son of a dragon, with wealth no dragonborn could ever possess simply because their lineage and status in with the Celestials dictated it so, but he had lost the reverence. He had lost his pride.

Because of her.

He opened his eyes and she stilled at the way he focused on her so intently.

“I don’t remember falling asleep,” she whispered. Or how they got here. Or how much time had passed. Panic flared, she hurried to add, “We must go. Before we are found here.”

Before she was discovered and forced back into the life she’d so desperately wanted to escape.

Sleep made his voice rough and soft. “Then let them. If we are found here, you’re as good as mine.”

A rogue thought crossed her mind. In these woods, a deflowering was as binding as a marriage. She almost laughed. True for Faerie. Unacceptable for Dragonborn.

And yet the idea tempted her. The truth of it lured her despite his beastly coldness.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice a low drawl.

She shook her head. He was close enough for her to touch if she were brazen enough. Under his gaze like this, she felt…how did she feel?

“No harm will come to you so long as you are with me.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then go back to sleep,” he said, rolling onto his back. “You’re cold as ice and I’ve no desire to marry an icicle. I’ve done my part keeping you warm.”

She bit her lip, holding back the sound of her whimpering at the cold air that crept between them.

He opened one eye. Slid her a look. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Strange enough, that is the least of my worries.” She should have held her tongue after that. She should have kept the words in her chest instead of setting them free. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so irritated at the loss of his touch and his warmth she would have held back. But now she was cold and frustrated and so it didn’t matter. “Or maybe I should say it is the greatest of my worries. To be found here like this with you and yet still be in possession of your orb.”

He rolled slowly—aggravatingly so—to face her. Anis was suddenly awash with the awareness of how close they were, a mere breath away from each other, and how alone they were. Though they weren’t truly alone. The trees, with their thick roots and dense foliage whispered amongst themselves in a language that was beyond her, and a silver-grey mist crawled around them like a storm cloud. Neither were threatening. Rather, they seemed to understand. Sungjin too seemed to understand what she’d implied.

“ _Mo chridhe_ , I assure you the wait will be worth it.”

She breathed a laugh, uncertain now that she shouldn’t be worried. Thrilled? How could he be in so little hurry? She let her lashes fall, her body sigh. “I’ve heard those words before.”

He raised a brow and pinned her with his gaze. Maddening. But also curious. Frustrated. “I’ve said those words before. To you.”

It was both question and realization.

“The last time you held me, yes.” Anis rolled onto her back and pulled him close, splaying her fingers at the back of his head and capturing his lips.

The action was like dropping a spark on dry tinder.

His kisses were incendiary. Lips soft and warm that ignited a rush of lust that coursed along her limbs. He ran his tongue over her mouth, tasting and seeking. Anis gave herself up to it, to the wicked sensations that left her dizzy and breathless. She wanted more of him. All of him. He kissed her with deep, gravelled sounds that came from the back of his throat, sounds that shot through the very core of her. Consumed her.

His hand that had come up to her waist moved up a slow tortuous path over the silk that separated her skin from his touch. He slid a finger along the simple line of fabric, barely touching her skin, making her wish the whole thing was gone. She ached for him. Somehow, not touching her was destroying her so she stroked her hand down his arm until she was pressing his hand against her as she arched into him.

She gasped in protest when he pulled away, but the sound was drowned by a mewl of pleasure when he pressed a kiss in the hollow of her collarbones as he peeled the straps of her dress down her arms. And then he was taking her mouth in one long kiss with tongues and teeth and a hunger intimate as it was intense.

The first pass of his hand on her bare skin was so light, so teasing, it drove her wild.He took his time, did not stop as he whispered words to her in a deep guttural Draconic that was beyond the languages her kind could understand. She hated that she did not understand, but she could not get enough of his voice and his breath in her ears.

His mouth wandered over her skin in a slow path of fire down her neck, sucking at the delicate skin of her shoulder, licking down the slope of one breast before circling the tip. Her whole body prickled with vulnerability, a tangle of confusion and desire.

“Anya.” There was something in the way he called out to her. Something elemental. Raw.

She was afraid to speak, not wanting to ruin the moment.

“Anya, _mo chridhe_.”

“Yes?” she sighed, more afraid he would stop if she didn’t respond. Answering to the name felt like such an open act of submission, it made her mouth water with unwanted want. It made heat pool between her thighs.

“You should stop me.”

She had not wanted him to stop before, she did not want to stop him now. “Why?”

He laughed into the soft skin on the underside of her breast, pressed a soft kiss there. “I refuse to take you in a patch of grass in the middle of nowhere.”

She would have allowed him to take her anywhere he’d like, he only needed to say the word. Not even a word. She would let him have her however which way he liked so long as he kept kissing her and touching her.

She clung to him, digging her fingers into the back of his neck. “That’s a terrible excuse.”

He lifted his head but before she could say anything else he kissed her again as his hand slid beneath the hem of her the simple dress she wore. Crying out, she unfurled easily for his exploration, writhing and sighing into the cold muggy air. She could not have stopped her response. She had no control over it. He did. For his fingers were wicked too, stroking gently and slowly until they found her warmth waiting for him. And still he was in no hurry.

“Not here,” he promised, whispering the words into mouth as he met her gaze.There was a gentleness in his voice, something so close to making her feel cherished as he touched her with intimate curiosity. “Not tonight. Not like this. I haven’t lost all semblance of sense just yet. When I have you, I will explore you. I will know everything. Where you are soft. Where you are hot. Everything. But not like this.”

But his hands were all over, possessive and claiming her. His fingers glided more deeply up and down the length of her. But he didn’t touch that nub. He drew one little circle just around it but never touched it. It forced the most uncontrollable heat through her.

Anis protested most furiously. At the back of her mind, she heard his words echo in her ears.

_You will beg for my touch. You will beg for me._

“How does that feel?” he asked, low and dark. “Good?”

Anis refused to answer him. She wanted to protest to his slow teasing, to the excruciating unhurriedness of his fingers stretching and pressing her apart.

“Tell me,” he growled.

She pressed her head against his shoulder, biting her lower lip to keep herself from making any more noises. She would not beg. She refused to give him that power over her. Wasn’t he controlling her as it were? Like this, here and now, she was under his mercy. She would not allow him more no matter how desperately she craved him.

He pulled his fingers out. “I want to hear it.”

She clung bereft to emptiness, and she tried to buck up to press herself against his palm. He pulled it away.

“Yes,” she sighed, “Good.” The word paled in comparison to how he made her feel, but she found that she could not find the words.

As her reward, he kissed her deeply as his finger slid inside her and moved in a firm rhythm, sending a shock of pleasure through to the very heart of her. She whimpered and tried to curl over his arm, but he held her tightly between him and the forest floor. Her writhing a vain effort to get his hands where she wanted him. The heat washing over her was unbearable as he stroked against her, feeling the way she pulsed around him, loving the way she rocked her hips against him as his thumb worked a tight circle at the straining nub of pleasure she’d all but begged for him to uncover.

“You will be mine, _mo chridhe_ ,” he murmured into a kiss. “I will make you mine.”

Later on she would reflect on these words, on the deliberateness to make sure she understood. Her own words were lost in the pleasure, in the euphoria that was taking over her when he slid a second finger along with the first.

Nevertheless, she was his anyway.

And he would be hers, too. She would make him want her in this way. She could make him beg for her too. That even after all this time, after everything she had done, after everything that they had become, she could still make him want her. But when he held her like this, there was nothing she could do but succumb to his heat.

And then she was on fire. A pleasure that seared through the air, Anis found herself surging up high until there was nothing else but what he gave her. The bold, brilliant lights blinked away as she floated back down from her climax, and she was limp heavy against him. She ran her hands down his back, feeling the hard muscles and the arch of his spine. He did not stop kissing her. And they remained that way for long moments.

They kissed as the day broke, the passage from dawn to morning a secret trace of pink and yellow through the darkness of the woods.

The mist cleared and the canopy rustled.

It was time to go.

 

It did not take long until they glanced the crest of the outpost as they travelled through the Faewylde, but it felt inconceivably long in the silence that governed the short journey. Anis had stayed quiet, waiting for him to speak. Waiting to hear him say what he was thinking. Or remembering. But he remained unwilling. Coiled tight and warded against her.

The In Between greeted them with a warmth of glittering sunlight slashing through the trees. Flowers of every imaginable hue bloomed along the cobblestone streets, and they swayed with the wind, dancing to a rhythm of their own. Smoke rose from chimneys on the cottages built into the hills, the stone walls and wooden doors covered in blue-green moss and pink lichens. It was idyllic as idyllic went. Peaceful and harmonious despite its place between the realms.

A raven watched them enter, tilting its head inquisitively before bursting off into flight.

Smiles greeted them from the halflings and halfbreeds and the different species that resided there. All of them welcoming and whispering amongst themselves. Small children ran across the street. The smell of bread and milk and honey permeated throughout.

“Rare to see a dragonborn in these parts,” said an elderly lady sitting on a moss-covered rock. She spoke in Common tongue, her voice raspy and little more than a creaking whisper. She crouched in a way that she almost doubled over herself, the ends of her grey knitted shawl almost touching the earth. Her hands were leathered and gnarled as her fingers gripped her walking stick. The elderly woman’s smile held a glint of teasing. “I know why you’re here. The Old Lady’s been waiting for you.”

Sungjin sent Anis a sidelong glance.

Aside from a place of asylum, the village was also more known to be where star-crossed lovers fled in elopement, but their situation was hardly that and Anis held back a sigh. She turned to her betrothed, dressed in all black in mortal fashion from his pullover down to his sturdy boots, and to herself dressed in a slip of silk and barefoot.

What a pair they made.

Sungjin spoke, his voice clear. “We are to be married.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 _We are to be married_.

As soon as he had uttered those words, Sungjin was beset with a discomfiting sensation that he’d had strung the words aloud in another time and place before. The same sensation that would not cease and had driven him to risk touching her so soon. He should not have kissed her so soon.

 _The last time you held me_ , she had said.

She couldn’t have said what he thought she had said. She couldn’t have meant what he thought she had meant. But as his fingers had sailed across her skin, his hands knew how to touch her. He had known how to make her gasp and mewl and make all those beautiful, sinful, sounds.

Even now he could not shake off that feeling of familiarity edging his memories, but he was chasing a flash of images that darted further and further away from him the more he pursued it. He closed his eyes against the frustration that flared—the recollection that would not come. There had been a woman, one he had thought was more dream than reality. More illusion than not.

Anis had been with him that night, that much he never doubted.

Anis had been—was—perfect.

But Anis was also a liar, and Sungjin could not distinguish between her layers of lies upon lies. For if he had held her—touched her in any manner close to the way he’d touched her as they laid together in the hollow—he would remember.

He would remember the softness of her skin, the warmth of her flesh, the gentle slope and curve of her body, the lingering of nectar on her lips, and the way her skin tasted like summer, salty and sweet, like both sin and innocence. He would remember his hands and his mouth on her skin if only because removing his hands and his mouth from her had been one of the most difficult things he had ever done. He would remember because instead of leaving her, he would have been tempted to do just the opposite—he would have sank into her and revelled in her, soft where women were meant to be soft and sweet where they were meant to be sweet. He would remember those little sighs that came from the back of her throat while he kissed her because they were the most erotic things he’d ever heard.

He would remember her.

Wouldn’t he?

He remembered waking up. He remembered the violent sway of the room as he stood to his feet. He remembered the blunt of the fall when his head hit the rotting wood floor. And he remembered the haze of his vision blurring in the harsh sunlight. He remembered a yearning ache in his chest. Of reaching out for someone as though he’d had expected someone to be there. There had been no one there.

And still what remained most vivid were those eyes. Strange, intoxicating lavender eyes.

Those eyes that had flickered in his memory for ten years. There had been countless moments when he had decided it wasn’t real. In his lowest points, he had thought he had fabricated it. Her. Something to blame for the loss of that night.

But Anis had been real.

He had known she was the key to that night. That she remembered more than he did. That she was his only chance at piecing together his fall. But it had never occurred to him that she had been with him for far longer than it took to revive him. That it was her who had destroyed him.

Perhaps it was a lie. Perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps she’d stabilised him and left him to recover on his own. But here she was. She’d taken from him and abandoned him to do whatever it was she thought she’d do with his orb, to run from who knew what to who knew where. Perhaps those teasing words were her latest attempt at torture.

But it wasn’t a lie.

He knew that as well as he knew anything.

But somehow, knowing the truth made everything worse. Because she hadn’t left him with no memory of the night. She had left him traces of her but not enough, for all else he could not remember.

She had stolen that from him as well.

She’d left him with no other memory of her.

A wave of anger washed through him, hot and uncomfortable. He snapped his attention to Anis who walked alongside him as they followed the elderly Halfling woman across the village. His bride was coiled tight, shoulders stiff and tense, hands balled in fists at her sides. Every other step, every snap of a twig, and every beat of silence between the rustle of leaves, her eyes darted across the houses and the shadows in between. For as long as she had his orb, she was the most delicious of all prey. She had come to him to the surface world aware of the risk to her life.

Sungjin swore under his breath.

Damn the dragon in his blood.

No harm would come to her now that he was her protector. Regardless of the fact that their marriage was nothing more but a transaction, the dragon in him had claimed ownership of her. Anis belonged to him now. Anyone else should know better than come after a dragon’s bride.

The ground sloped, grew softer and wetter after they crossed the wooden bridge across the river that bisected the village. They walked until they reached a small break in the woods, a grove of sorts, half encircled by a rocky outcrop. The sky was blue and glowing above them. Moss and lichens covered the rocks and stones that lined the path, and they glittered when the sunlight touched them jut right. At the end of the foot-trodden trail stood a cottage with a pair of windows covered in creeping vines. It stood on an elevated patch of earth, made of stone with a thatch roof. Beneath the smells of herbs and bread was mildew and aged leather and earth. The door was made of heavy, weathered wood with runes carved around the edges.

The Halfling woman smiled at them, looking up at him through squinted eyes. She knocked twice and the door opened on its own accord with a whisper of wind and rusting hinges.

A hoarse voice, a little more than a creaking whisper said, “Come in, Dragonborn. Waiting for you and your damselfly, I have been.”

Sungjin stepped across the threshold and immediately felt the warmth envelope him. Anis felt it too, she gasped and touched her arm as though someone had wrapped a blanket around her. The house was all one room, the wooden floorboards weathered and dry. The shelved stood against the stone walls, filled with phials and ampoules and coloured glass bottles. Dried leaves and stalks, mushroom heads, and other powdered ingredients in wooden mortars littered the table. On the shelf above the hearth sat crystals and heavy semi-precious stones. A moonstone dagger lay innocently alongside the crystals. On the far window, was a series of small pots of small dusky lavender blooms.

Sungjin recoiled involuntarily.

Dragonsbane.

A low table rested in the far corner, near the open hearth, a tray of spices and vegetables beside it. Before the hearth sat a figure shrouded in a shawl, a hood, and several layers of fabric as though someone had animated a bundle of cloth and blankets.

“They have come to marry,” said the elderly Halfling woman, her green eyes glittering on her rosy face. “How delightful. Isn’t it delightful?”

The Old Lady answered with a vague sound from her throat. “It is interesting.”

Anis turned to him with a worried, albeit curious, gaze. They had been silent since the morning, since he had roused her from sleep and they continued their journey. For a fleeting moment he was arrested by her clear eyes the color of dusk, flashing back to the vision of pleasure blazing on her face. He forced himself to return his attention to the Old Lady.

The Halfling woman puttered over to Anis, reaching forward and asking her to bend down. The woman put her hands firmly on either side of her head and peered into her eyes. “Such lovely eyes. The poor child. She’s walked a thorny path.”

Anis’s wings shot from her back, bursting into this dimension with a spark of light. Sungjin barely restrained the instinct to cross the handful of steps it would take to shield her from these women’s scrutiny.

“Scars, here and there,” the Halfling woman continued. “And…of course. Of course. You carry with you great burdens.”

Under this light somehow everything appeared in harsh focus. Anis’s wings were scarred as her feet were, gentle breaks and tears healed over time. She should not have been scarred. Anis was an imperator. Her royal upbringing should have sheltered her from harm—should have kept her away from the Faewylde and the Human realm.

He was her protector now.

The thought came unbidden, but he did not resist it.

The Old Lady’s head seemed to turn to him slightly from within her hood. “Dragonborn, you wish answers.”

It was not a question.

Sungjin bowed his head in deference, an artefact of his training with the Celestial Guard and the wisdom that this was no ordinary old woman.

“Yet the proper questions you do not have,” the Old Lady wheezed.

“We come to marry,” he said instead, feeling much like a boy still in his training robes.

“Answers, you come to seek.” The Old Lady turned to her hands and put them together to form a cup. “The truth, it is you come to seek.”

“They seek marriage,” said the Halfling lady, dusting off Anis’s clothes. “They come to marry, after all. That’s what they said. How long has it been since we’ve married a dragonborn? And to a princess. There is no time to wait. They’ve come so far. Oh, just thinking about all the preparations!”

The Old Lady wheezed and it might have been a laugh. “Married they are to be.”

“Isn’t it just wonderful?” The Halfling woman stepped into the far side of the cottage to retrieve a dusty old book, the page edges yellow and frayed. She wiped at the cover with a dishcloth.

“Married not in the ways of the Fae,” added the Old Lady. “Not in the manner of the Faewylde.”

Anis turned to him, her mouth quirked in a stifled smirk. He could have had her in the woods and claimed his yeouiju in the process. He had her willing and eager.

“Draconic,” Sungjin said, his voice steady. He’d heard rumours of Fae weddings, the fanfare and the festivities, and the unnecessary flourish and officiations. Celebrations that lasted weeks, a month at least. He had no desire to confirm if the rumours were true. He preferred to keep the ceremony traditional. Simple.

But marriage seldom was simple.

“Draconic it is,” said the Old Lady. She turned to Anis, the slight turn of her hood the only indication of her intent. “On these old eyes, the shadows play tricks on. But your bejewelled eyes, I see them. See them I do, young Imperator. You do not yet know what you have come here for.”

Anis did not answer, and Sungjin thought it wise. The less they said, the less that could be used against them. Despite the heaviness, Anis did not waver under the Old Lady’s steady contemplation. She stood her ground, aware that they could see through her, through to his yeouiju. But the matriarchs would not turn them away.

“Not an easy vow to make, dragonbound oath is,” came her rasping whisper. “From this, you do not turn back. Near impossible it is to break, not one taken in hand unadvisedly or lightly or wantonly.. An irrevocable bond a dragonbound oath is. ”

“I understand,” Anis replied, quietly.

Sungjin understood as well. They could still turn away. They were being given a chance to change their minds, for him to pull Anis into a darkened corner of the woods and have his way with her, and the result would be the same all without the prison of his dragonbound vows. But he needed her. He was not done with Anis just yet.

“Then before me, both of you come,” whispered the Old Lady.

The Halfling woman gasped into her hand. “But the princess is not ready! She cannot be married like this! She needs a beautiful silk gown. And flowers.”

Sungjin grit his teeth and regarded the woman with barely concealed exasperation. Anis, however, turned to him with an amused but also hopeful gleam in her eyes. As though Anis had been starving for weeks and the woman was offering her food. Here was the damselfly imperator groomed all her life to be a bride, married weary with no rest after a bruising travel in clothes she that had seen the worst of wear. To him.

He grunted his assent. “Flowers.”

For the first time since they’ve found each other, Anis’s face lit up with a beautiful, wide smile. At him. Because of him. It changed the character of her nature completely, giving him something both familiar and elusive to look at. When was the last time someone had looked happy because of him? Sungjin turned his eyes away.

“Stay here, princess. I know exactly what you need,” prattled the Halfling woman. “I have an eye for these things” The Halfling woman hobbled outside for a minute, returning with a handful of purple and white wildflowers, small blooms that curled into tight fronds and dripped like beads of water down a string of spider silk. With her magic, the Halfling woman slowly weaved them into a simple, delicate crown.

Anis kneeled before the Halfling woman who placed the flower crown over her head. Then the woman circled Anis, a leathered finger to her cheek, considering her for a long moment.

“And a little bit of this.” The Halfling woman twisted her fingers in the air and a swirl of wind lifted the dirt and grime off of Anis. Another swish of her hand and the simple dress Anis wore extended to the floor in a waterfall of silk pooling at her feet.

The Halfling woman adjusted the falls of Anis’s gown as his bride stood, affording him a view of the iridescent, gossamer gown that clung to her bodice and her waist before cascading all the way down.

And then he couldn’t move or speak at all.

“There.” The Halfling woman spoke first. “Fit for a bride. Lovely, isn’t she? Just so.”

Sungjin was never one to put much credence in the idea that a woman’s clothes could make her more beautiful. Women were women. If they were attractive, it did not matter what they wore. And if they weren’t, then there was only so much a dress could do. Even one made of magic.

And yet this gown seemed to be beyond magic with its elegant lines and the way it shimmered in the slashes of yellow sunlight that filtered through the dusty windows and the way the purple flowers climbing over one shoulder to hold the dress against her body offset her pretty pale skin and played with her raven hair and the lavender of her eyes and the lustre of sapphires and emeralds of her wings.

This was the Anis he had not had the chance to meet, the Anis a dragonborn of the Celestial Guard would never have the opportunity to get to know—the one born and raised with wealth and a kingdom at her feet. The one raised to marry a prince or another.

And damn him to the Underdark if she didn’t look the part.

Too much like a lovely summer.

Too much like a halcyon nostalgia for things that have yet to come.

Anis seemed to expect him to say something, seemed to seek whatever little approval he might have of her, so he said nothing. To prove that this marriage was nothing more than a trade. He would not come to care for her, and he would not be so careless as to give her reason to care for him.

Not because he wanted to come to his knees before her, rendered helpless from something too close to emotion.

Not because were she to ask for anything she wanted, he would give it to her with pleasure.

Anis dropped her gaze, her eyes instead trailing the length of her gown.

He turned to the Old Lady who watched with unseen eyes and willed any one of them to protest to the marriage. To fight the demand. To insist that they reconsider.

No one did.

“Come, child. Kneel.”

Anis kneeled before the Old Lady, eyes downcast as though she were a submissive bride. As though she knew that he wanted her to fight him, so instead she bowed her head in obedience he knew held no honesty. She was nothing of the sort and Sungjin found that he longed for the Anis who had accosted him in his office. This Anis left him feeling twenty times the devil’s own.

“Kneel, Dragonborn, if you are certain that what you wish is what you ask.”

Just what he needed. A cryptic Old Lady. Nonetheless, Sungjin did as he was asked.

“Take each other’s hands,” began the Old Lady.

Sungjin claimed Anis’s left forearm with his right hand, exposing their wrists to the Halfling woman who then held their hands together in her small palm. With the moonstone dagger, she cut open their skin just enough to bleed and pressed their wrists together, Anis’s blue blood mixing with the tarnished ichor of his.

Anis bit her bottom lip as her hands quivered from the unexpected pain, and Sungjin instinctively rubbed the side of her wrist with his thumb. Her hands were scarred, too. Her breathing hastened and the cold found her no matter how they hid from the winter. Sungjin tightened his hold on her passing on what warmth he could offer.

The Draconic ways of marriage was old magic that drew from blood and bone and of the universe itself, a once in a lifetime vow that forged spirits together for an eternity. Dragonborn were not married in the Celestial City—their shameful lineage forbade them from such privilege and pleasures, instead they were sworn into a life of servitude to make up from their existence. But rules had never stopped those who were willing to risk it all.

“Your vows, Dragonborn,” said the Old Lady.

“Look at me,” he whispered to Anis. “Only me.”

And she did. She stared up at him, the hesitation in her eyes melting away into intent and trust. Heat bloomed briskly on her face. It was just the two of them now.

Sungjin spoke in Draconic, a choice made for several reasons most important of which were that the sentiment of the phrases he were to say out loud was so out of place in this hasty ceremony that it emphasised what a hollow mockery of a wedding it was.

“Heart of my heart,” he began in a low raspy whisper. He had heard the words spoken before, and he recited from memory. “I, Sungjin”—the name gave him pause, he had no other identity than the name he had assumed in the human realm, no dragon identity to solidify his claim—“give you that which is mine to give. I am yours to command in the ways that you require. I have no name to offer, but I offer you my protection. I will shield you with my body as you are mine. Yours will be the name I cry into the night and speak of in the morning. I will cherish and honour you through this life and the next.”

A dragon needed only speak his vows once and it was binding. Sungjin felt theunshakeable sensation of the weaves of the universe wrap around him, tying him to her. His yeouiju thrummed deep within her, calling out to him in a fire that summoned him to her. To claim her.

“And yours, Imperator.”

The color was high on her cheeks and crossed the bridge of her nose, and her breath was faster than usual. Sungjin was unsettled by the realisation that he had already come to know something as intimate as her breathing, but he could do no more than calm her with his eyes. His free hand came to caress the lock of hair that curled down her collarbones before it came to the side of her neck where her pulse beat erratically. But his touched soothed her somehow, and she took a deep breath. She looked up at him, her eyes diamond-bright.

Anis’s lips quivered as she spoke, the dulcet trill of her Sylvan foreign and strange to his ears. She murmured the words and it felt like a song, the consonants soft and the vowels lingering on her tongue. Again and again, she said the words. Thrice to bind her to her vows, each time prompted by the Old Lady. _Brannon nin_ , she called him.

 _My lord, Sungjin_.

The Old Lady muttered something in the old tongue declaring them husband and wife. “Your offering, Dragonborn.”

He reached into his pocket for an old medallion and presented it to the Halfling woman. The pendant held no other value but sentiment, it was part of his celestial robes. The Old Lady raised a feeble hand, weathered and tinged with blue, and pointed at his medallion, bending the metal into a long strip of molten amber and malachite before moulding it into two rings.

He slid the ring into Anis’s finger and she did the same. The ring seemed to burn itself into his skin, heavy with the weight of his vows. Anis stared at the their hands. There was no word for it, this feeling.

“Do not forget,” said the Halfling woman, “one last thing. Go on.”

“What now?” Anis asked.

“Just this.” Sungjin leaned forward and bent his head. He pressed his lips against hers, savouring the taste of her in one quick kiss.

It was done. They were married.

“Until consummated in the carnal lusts and appetites, the marriage is not done,” the Old Lady wheezed, reading his mind.

Anis ducked her head to hide the embarrassment on her face.

The Halfling woman nodded. “Tis true. For her to be yours fully, the deed must be done. Otherwise the vows will not take. It would do you no good to stay in limbo for long. It does things to the heart.”

“And the soul,” added the Old Lady in her croaking whisper.

Sungjin did not look forward to a long tirade of motherly advice from either women, and rose to his feet taking his wife with him. He pulled out a fresh gold coin from his pocket. “For your troubles.”

The Halfling woman glanced at the Old Lady first before speaking. “We require nothing from you, Dragonborn. However…” she turned to Anis. “We do ask something of the imperator.”

Sungjin’s fists coiled tight at his side. They would take nothing from Anis, he moved to shield her but his wife— _his wife_ —raised her hand to stop him. Sungjin tore his gaze away with difficulty.

“I understand,” she said, stepping forward.

The Old Lady spoke. “Child, an answer all we ask of you. One question, one answer.”

The question was spoken in Sylvan, the language of the Faewylde, and Anis answered similarly. Thrice the question was asked and thrice Anis answered.

“This child sees what the other does not,” the Halfling woman said switching back to Common tongue, satisfied with the answer they had received.

“It is in her nature,” the Old Lady responded similarly. “She is what she is.”

The Halfling woman nodded and sighed. “And now it must be done, go on.”

Anis turned to Sungjin, and it angered him that he could not tell what they had taken from her only that he knew they had. Anis made no other indication of what it was she had lost, she only bowed her head to him. Together, they left the cottage and walked back to the village in silence.

All that was left was tonight and then they would return to the human realm where they would live separate lives.

 


End file.
